Mental Health Commissioner Opposes Nursing Home Bill

Proposal Would Require Local Approval Before Prisoners, Mentally Ill Could Be Moved In

March 08, 2013|By DAVE DRURY, Special to The Courant, The Hartford Courant

MIDDLETOWN — — The controversial facility planned for Rocky Hill meets the strict legal criteria for a nursing home, and prison inmates and state mental patients must pass a thorough screening before being placed there, a top state official assured legislators Friday.

"We will not take individuals that are exhibiting any violent behavior,'' Commissioner Patricia Rehmer of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services Commissioner testified before the legislature's Public Health Committee.

Rehmer spoke in opposition to a bill co-sponsored by Rocky Hill Democratic legislators Sen. Paul Doyle and Rep. Antonio Guerrera that would require local approval before the departments of mental health and correction could place people under their control in a residential nursing home.

Doyle and Guerrera introduced the bill in response to the plan by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration to contract with a private vendor to open a 95-bed nursing home on West Street in Rocky Hill to provide long-term care to patients who qualify under federal guidelines for skilled nursing care.

The agreement will enable the state to reduce its costs through $5.5 million in Federal Medicaid reimbursement.

The agreement with the vendor, iCare Management LLC, was negotiated to provide for admittedly "hard to place" individuals, including Connecticut Valley Hospital patients "who qualify for a nursing home level of care but cannot find a nursing home that is willing to serve them because of historical behavior which may have no pertinence to their current physical condition," Rehmer said.

Not all patients would receive end-of-life care. The initial 10 selected for placement suffer from dementia and would be kept in a locked ward, Rehmer said. Current plans call for moving about 10 patients a month into the home, which will operate under the oversight of the department of mental health and licensing from the Department of Public Health, Rehmer said.

Rehmer was the lone state official to appear at the hearing, held on the campus of Wesleyan University. She adhered to the central argument advanced publicly by Malloy administration officials, and by attorneys for the owner and operator of the property in court filings.

"This is a nursing home,'' she insisted.

The site, a refurbished former nursing home, was selected by the vendor. In response to a legislator's question, Rehmer said officials had determined that converting a closed prison into a nursing home was too costly.

The claim that the facility represents an extension of a previously permitted nursing home was sharply rejected by Rocky Hill legislators, town officials and neighboring residents.

"When you are putting dangerous inmates in a nursing home, you are changing the use,'' Town Manager Barbara R. Gilbert said.

"We are angry that the state and iCare have circumvented Rocky Hill planning and zoning and prevented Rocky Hill residents from having a voice about a hazardous prison hospital in our town,'' West Street resident Nicole Crawford said. "They put our children and families at risk for the sake of money."

No one was more incensed than Guerrera, who complained that the lack of notice and public input in the site selection process was unprecedented in his 12 years as a legislator.

"I am so mad. Every time I talk about this my blood boils,'' he told committee members, pausing at one point to compose himself.

He and Doyle made sure that their peers understood this was not just a Rocky Hill issue. Other similar facilities, and eventually ones for people who would qualify for assisted living, are on the way. "If you do not support this bill be aware — your town may be next,'' Doyle said.

"It would appear to me this would set a precedent.'' observed Rep. David Scribner, R- Brookfield.

Committee Co-Chairwoman Susan Johnson, D-Willimantic, asked if actuarial evidence had confirmed that the state would be able to fill all 95 beds.

"We don't think we can fill it overnight... but over time we do believe we will be able to fill it,'' Rehmer answered.

Johnson said she would have "a real problem'' if private nursing home patients would have to be admitted to fill up empty beds.